Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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285.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to reports from schools that this year's ancillary grant is insufficient to cover the cost of staff not on her Department’s payroll that is, cleaners; how the reduction in the ancillary grant has been calculated; if it took into consideration the move of school secretaries to her Department’s payroll; and the details of the process followed in the recalculation of this grant. [24895/24]

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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286.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the cost-of-living grant awarded to schools can be used to cover shortfalls in the ancillary grant [24896/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 285 and 286 together.

My department is committed to providing funding to recognised primary and post-primary schools in the free education scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day to day running costs such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general up-keep and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. Schools have the flexibility to use capitation funding provided for general running costs and ancillary funding provided for caretaking and secretarial services as a common grant from which the Board of Management can allocate according to its own priorities.

In addition to these grants, €20 million in funding was issued in October 2023, to support all recognised primary and post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme. This funding is the first tranche of an overall additional €60 million funding announced as part of Budget 2024 measures designed to assist schools with increased day-to-day running costs such as heating and electricity. A further €40 million in funding was delivered in early 2024.

As part of Budget 2024, significant increases in capitation funding for primary and post-primary schools were confirmed which includes a permanent restoration of capitation funding as well as an increase for cost-of-living pressures. This year’s Budget will provide targeted funding for school communities with an increase in capitation of over €81 million.

The current standard rate of Capitation grant is €183 per pupil at Primary level and will be paid to schools in January & June 2024 for the 2023/24 academic year.

As part of the capitation package in Budget 2024, €21 million was secured as a permanent increase in capitation funding to assist schools now and longer term with increased day-to-day running costs. This will support a permanent restoration of funding for all primary and post-primary schools from September 2024. This will bring the basic rate of capitation grant to the pre-2011 level of €200 per student in primary schools and to €345 in voluntary secondary schools. Enhanced rates will also be paid in respect of pupils with Special Educational Needs. This represents an increase of circa 9.2% of current standard and enhanced capitation rates.

As the Deputy may be aware, following the acceptance by Fórsa of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) agreement in respect of salaries and various leave entitlements for grant-funded school secretaries, those secretaries who accepted the terms of this agreement were placed on a payroll operated by my Department from September 2023. Therefore, ancillary-related grant funding has been revised to reflect the fact that schools are no longer paying these salaries directly.

Where schools did not have a secretary that opted into the WRC agreement, no reduction was applied to their ancillary-related grant funding.

The arrangements for the 2023/24 school year are based on reducing grants by the value of the salary schools paid to grant-funded secretaries prior to their acceptance of the new terms and conditions. Schools provided my Department with these details and this information is now being used to reduce the ancillary related grant funding.

Correspondence issued to all schools on 20th December 2023 providing details of these arrangements for the period September to December 2023. Further correspondence issued on 26th April 2024 setting out the position for the period January to August 2024.

Schools have been advised that work is ongoing to identify a method of standardising the reduction to the Ancillary and SSSF Grants for the longer term, where school secretaries are being paid via a payroll operated by my Department. Engagement will take place with school management bodies in order to discuss these arrangements to ensure that they are as reasonable and as fair as possible for all schools and further details of these arrangements will be provided to schools as soon as they become available.

The Financial Support Services Unit (FSSU), funded by my Department, is an important source of advice and support to schools on financial matters, including budgeting and cashflow management. More information together with budgeting templates can be found on www.fssu.ie .